Second Language Learning and Teaching

Series editor

Mirosław Pawlak, Kalisz, Poland

About the Series

The series brings together volumes dealing with different aspects of learning andteaching second and foreign languages. The titles included are both monographsand edited collections focusing on a variety of topics ranging from the processesunderlying second language acquisition, through various aspects of languagelearning in instructed and non-instructed settings, to different facets of the teachingprocess, including syllabus choice, materials design, classroom practices andevaluation. The publications reflect state-of-the-art developments in those areas,they adopt a wide range of theoretical perspectives and follow diverse researchparadigms. The intended audience are all those who are interested in naturalisticand classroom second language acquisition, including researchers, methodologists,curriculum and materials designers, teachers and undergraduate and graduatestudents undertaking empirical investigations of how second languages are learntand taught.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10129

Sahbi Hidri • Christine CoombeEditors

Evaluation in ForeignLanguage Educationin the Middle Eastand North Africa

123

EditorsSahbi HidriEnglish Language InstituteUniversity of JeddahJeddahSaudi Arabia

and

Faculty of Human and Social Sciencesof Tunis

TunisTunisia

Christine CoombeHigher Colleges of TechnologyDubaiUnited Arab Emirates

ISSN 2193-7648 ISSN 2193-7656 (electronic)Second Language Learning and TeachingISBN 978-3-319-43233-5 ISBN 978-3-319-43234-2 (eBook)DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43234-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016947024

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Preface

Evaluation is everywhere. It has been attributed a great deal of attention because ofits germane role for different stakeholders, such as educators, policy-makers, stu-dents, teachers, parents, administrators, curriculum developers, book designers, andevaluation practitioners in general. Evaluation has repercussions for the individual,societal, economic, cultural, and political levels. It also has an ethical side, and it istailored to the needs of these different people to remain abreast of the effectivenessand efficiency of programs. It is only in this regard that evaluation has to beimplemented carefully by the right people.

Evaluation plays a very important role in different fields, such as languageprograms, quality assurance, teaching, and testing. For instance, in any educationalreform (Leung & Rea-Dickins, 2007), evaluation is needed to improve teaching,testing, accreditation, and curriculum reform based on students’ self-assessment(Ladyshewsky & Taplin, 2015). Evaluation can also be implemented for sustainabledevelopment that could be linked to quality assurance. Kiley and Rea-Dickins(2005, p. 6) define evaluation as a “form of enquiry, ranging from research tosystematic approaches to decision-making.” Evaluation is implemented from dif-ferent perspectives: Students’ learning and evaluation (Golding & Adam, 2014;Nygaar & Belluigi, 2011), teachers being evaluated by students, faculty staffevaluation, conceptions and practices of assessment (Hidri, 2015), formative versussummative evaluation, dynamic assessment, language program evaluation, doctoraldissertations or theses (Kyvik & Thune, 2015), teacher professional developmentevaluation, classroom observation to improve the teaching practices (Wei, 2015),evaluation of text genres, test evaluation (placement, diagnostic, progress,achievement, CBT), evaluation of teaching methods and methodologies andassessment literacy, etc. All these evaluation perspectives are contrived fordecision-making purposes, such as maintaining “evaluation practices” (West,2015). Tests and test validations are used for evaluation purposes in that they areevaluated for their test usefulness qualities, such as validity, reliability, authenticity,practicality, interactiveness, and impact (Bachman & Palmer, 1996, 2010).

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To cope with the changing needs of the different stakeholders, many types ofevaluations have witnessed tremendous changes: Formative vs. summative evalu-ation in improving teaching practices (Wei, 2015), classroom-based assessment,large-scale assessment, course evaluation (Bailey & Brown, 1996; Brown & Bailey,2008), standardized examinations, dynamic assessment in mediating the test-takersto overcome their testing difficulties (Hidri, 2014; Lantolf & Poehner, 2011),frameworks of reference, teacher evaluation, and quality assurance and its sus-tainable development (Shiel, Filho, do Paço, & Brandli, 2015). Such evaluationfacets require well-defined standards deemed necessary and relevant to demarcatethe different benchmarks against which any evaluation judgment could be made.

Many researchers (e.g., Campbell & Mark, 2015; Hart, Diercks-O’Brien, &Powell, 2009; Jin, 2010; Kiley & Rea-Dickins, 2005; Swanwick, 2007) haveinvestigated evaluation because of its cultural and prominent role in preparing andevaluating language teachers, focusing on the quality of learning and teaching,addressing language programs, the curriculum and changing and improving theteaching and learning qualities and processes. To enhance the effectiveness ofevaluation facets, a wide range of data collection methods could be utilized, such asquestionnaires, interviews, observation checklists, text analyses, and examinationsall of which are geared toward enhancing the effectiveness of such facets.

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) settings, many stakeholders (e.g.,educators, policy-makers, students, teachers, parents, and administrators) havecautioned against the overlooking of evaluation. The MENA region has gonethrough different and significant educational changes with pinned hopes onattaining better education quality and, therefore, meeting international standards.While there is a plethora of studies on evaluation, there is a paucity of research onthe status of evaluation in the MENA context, especially evaluation of Englishlanguage programs, examinations, text genre analyses, assessment accountability(Hart, Diercks-O’Brien, & Powell, 2009), learning, teaching and quality assurance.Unfortunately, such types of evaluation have not gained momentum for practicaland most often political reasons. A Google search on evaluation in the MENAcontext yields fewer, if not, poorer results that could not amount to official eval-uation enterprises of educational programs. There is a dramatic scarcity of researchon evaluation in the MENA region.

This book presents myriads of evaluation themes the first of which is Teacherand Faculty Staff Evaluation. In Chapter “Teacher Evaluation: What Counts as anEffective Teacher?,” Mazandarani and Troudi talked about the multidimensionalaspects of evaluation in shaping the teacher profile that is perceived as central to theattention of policy-makers and administrators alike. This exploratory study lookedinto teachers’ perceptions of how an “effective second/foreign language teacher”should be. Results showed five major categories of what it means to be an effectiveteacher and perhaps what is relevant about this chapter is its model of effectiveteaching that embraces teachers’ personal, cognitive, metacognitive, pedagogical,and professional skills deemed necessary for teacher development. In the samevein, Alamouldi and Troudi, in Chapter “EFL Teacher Evaluation: A TheoreticalPerspective,” tackled teacher evaluation and its relevant importance in signposting

vi Preface

the necessity for teachers to keep abreast of the different trends that promote teacherdevelopment. This chapter suggested different ways in which teachers could beevaluated. Al-Fattal, Chapter “Faculty Performance Evaluation and Appraisal: ACase from Syria,” foregrounded performance evaluation of academic staff membersin Syria and its relevance to the educational context. The study triangulated dif-ferent sources of data collection tools and methods, such as interviews, docu-mentary analysis, and observation. One of the results relevant to this study was theidea of “judgmental” evaluation. The author called for a recommendation tip:Standardizing evaluation procedures that would help faculty members to be awareof the relevance and importance of performance evaluation.

The second important part of this book is concerned with AssessmentPractices. In Chapter “Ethicality in EFL Classroom Assessment: Bridging theGap between Theory and Practice,” Torky and Haider, in an empirical study inEgypt, stressed the notion of ethicality in EFL classroom-based assessmentcontext and its relation to test fairness. Based on a fifty-item questionnaire onteachers’ perceptions of ethicality, findings of this study demonstrated that suchconcepts were controversial, thus calling for the use of multiple sources ofmeasuring students’ ability to set up some matching between the assessmentmethods, curriculum objectives and classroom activities. For the authors, oneof the practical ways to reach assessment fairness is teacher training. In Chapter“Problematizing Teachers’ Exclusion from Designing Exit Tests,” another equalethical issue related to assessment fairness was investigated by Dammak whoquestioned the exclusion of teachers from designing examinations, such as exittests in the UAE context. This issue was undertaken from the perspective of twomain stakeholders: teachers and policy-makers. Qualitative results bespoke thatteachers’ self-awareness of assessment was relevant in evaluating the courseobjectives. This assessment literacy stood in sharp contrast with the assumptionsthat teachers lacked testing competence, thus denying the motif to exclude themfrom test design. Albaiz, in Chapter “The Voice of Classroom Achievementtowards Native and Non-native Educators in English Language Teaching: AnEvaluative Study,” evaluated the students’ class performance as undertaken bynative and non-native speakers (NNS) in a Saudi context. Results indicated thatNNS teachers were likely to face different problems related to the misconcep-tions of some subject-matter teaching key concepts. To remedy this, the authorsuggested the implementation of appropriate teaching strategies to help learnersto develop their language ability in their learning environment.

Part III of the book addresses Text Genre Analysis Evaluation by presenting twocontroversial cases from Tunisia. In Chapter “Evaluation of Generic Structure ofResearch Letters Body Section: Create a Research Letter Body Section Model,”Melliti focused on the Evaluation of the Organizational Structure of ResearchLetters sections. Based on a sentence-by-sentence content analysis, the authorfound that a “Create A Research Letter Body Model (CARL)” contained 58 sen-tences of which 49 are obligatory. Implications of this study could be related tocurriculum design and implementation as well as the teaching of writing to ESPresearchers, students, and curriculum developers. In the same vein, text genre

Preface vii

analysis evaluation, in Chapter “Genre Analysis and Cultural Variations: ACognitive Evaluation of Anglo-American Undergraduate Personal Statements,” in acontrastive analysis of 60 British (n = 30) and American (n = 30) personal state-ments written by undergraduates in different disciplines, such as business, physics,and biology, Hajji maintained that both Anglophone undergraduates yieldedrhetorical and linguistic similarities and differences in the analyzed corpora, whichwas due to the sociocultural context where these undergraduates were operating.This study is also relevant in probing the genre aspects of personal statements.

In Part IV, Assessment of Productive Skills, Ben Maad, in Chapter “LearnerDifferences: A Trojan Horse Factor in Task-Based Oral ProductionAssessment?,” tackled the role of learner differences in an oral productionassessment mode from a task-based assessment approach. The author listedthree assessment criteria in any oral performance: Fluency, accuracy, andcomplexity necessary for a successful speaking production. In Chapter“Assessing ESL Students’ Paraphrasing and Note-Taking,” Soheim, inassessing paraphrasing and note-taking, spotlighted the necessity to go throughdifferent steps to design a writing test for undergraduate ESL learners in Egypt,such as initial planning, test specs, and note-taking skills. All such phases weremeant to make students aware of the necessity to avoid plagiarism, whileconcentrating on the obligation of academic writing through the implementa-tion of paraphrasing and note-taking for Arab learners in an ESL program. InChapter “Criteria for Assessing EFL Writing at Majma’ah University,” Yahyastudied the necessity of implementing quality assurance standards in the Saudiuniversities considered as relevant for teaching and assessment purposes. Theauthor wondered whether the students’ writings were standardized usingdefined marking rubrics from three perspectives: Instructional experience of thefaculty, academic levels of writing courses, and type and nature of writing.Findings showed that there were no statistically significant differences in theimplementation of the marking rubrics.

In Part V of the book, Textbook and ICT Evaluation, Hermessi, Chapter “AnEvaluation of the Place of Culture in English Education in Tunisia,” evaluated thecultural instances found in official educational documents, eight textbooks, andseven teacher guides produced by Tunisians who were involved in designingcurricula and materials design in English. Results pointed that curriculum devel-opers and textbook writers did not have any preconceived ideas on excludingculture from the English program although approaching such cultural instances wasdone in a non-systematic way. In Chapter “Evaluation of ICT Use in LanguageEducation: Why Evaluate, Where to Look, and with What Means?,” Derbelreviewed the status of ELT from a computer-assisted language learning (CALL)angle. The study highlighted the intricacies of learning and teaching in an ICTenvironment, and it concluded by mentioning future research venues for evaluatingICT in the MENA educational context.

Part VI deals with Evaluation of ELT Certificates and Programs in Sudan. InChapter “Evaluating the Certificate of Teaching English as a Foreign Language(CTEFL): A Way to Quality,” Nur and ElSaid Mohamed probed the evaluation

viii Preface

of the Certificate of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (CTEFL) adminis-tered by the graduate unit in the English Language Institute in Khartoum, Sudan.Data from a questionnaire survey revealed that the service beneficiaries (students)were satisfied with the program, since it contained interesting modules that mettheir needs. Students also praised the quality of their instructors. In the samecontext, Alhassan and Holi Ali, in Chapter “An Evaluation of the Challenges ofSudanese Linguistics and English Language-Related Studies’ Ph.D. Candidates: AnExploratory Qualitative Study,” in an exploratory qualitative study, evaluated ELTstudies of the Sudanese Ph.D. candidates. The study put focus on different facets toimprove the quality of Ph.D. supervision in this very context. Results suggested thatthe quality of this supervision was fraught with myriads of problems and challengesamong which were scarcity of resources and organization. What was missing fromthis chapter was whether the nature of the supervisors’ expertise had a significantimpact on the quality of dissertation.

Part VII of the book, evaluation of Quality Assurance and ESP Needs Analysis,Staub, Chapter “Quality Assurance and Foreign Language Programme Evaluation,”addressed the relevance of quality assurance and foreign language program evaluation inTurkey. Many stakeholders, such as universities, faculties, and instructional programs,were striving to achieve institutional quality that was valued by external and internalstakeholders. In addition, the author stressed the fact that both quality assurance andevaluation were increasingly becoming “critical activities for EFL programs wishing todemonstrate their worth.” In Chapter “Evaluation in Tunisia: The Case of EngineeringStudents,” Jamly investigated the status of evaluating needs analysis of engineeringstudents from an ESP dimension. Based on data collection on the perceptions of theTOEIC test in an engineering program in Tunisia administered to students and teachers aresults denoted that current employees, who were former students of this engineeringprogram, did not think of the TOEIC as an important test to evaluate their languageability in English, since, according to their replies, the test contents did not meet theirneeds. The author recommended that perceptions of evaluation embrace the needs of allstakeholders from an outcome-based measuring perspective “to build the bridge betweenlearning objectives and learner evaluation in ESP.”

In Part VIII of the book, Assessment Literacy and Dynamic Assessment, Bouziane,in Chapter “Why Should the Assessment of Literacy in Morocco Be Revisited?,”investigated the reading and writing assessment literacy in Morocco, which could be areplica of the testing situation in North African, such as Tunisia, Libya, and Algeria.The author stressed the negative washback effect of assessment on students “bothduring and after school.” Unfair types of assessment, as the author claimed, rested upontwo major aspects: The use of a very narrow range of skills in testing reading, whichcould be amounted to the notion of construct fuzziness, and teachers’ rating incon-sistencies in writing. To remedy these shortcomings, the author called for a morecomprehensive definition of the reading and writing constructs to include other types oftest items that could be objectively scored. In addition, for this similar situation to beimproved, the author highlighted the fact that there should be a reconsideration of ELTresearch and teacher training in how to produce useful and fair tests in similar-relatedcontexts. In Chapter “Specs Validation of a Dynamic Reading Comprehension Test for

Preface ix

EAP Learners in an EFL Context,” Hidri evaluated the theoretical and practical aspectsof designing dynamic assessment specs of a reading comprehension examination forlearners of English in an Omani context. Using both qualitative and quantitativeapproaches, results of the study showed that students’ performance improved in thepresence of mediation and support. The study concluded with highlighting a list ofspecs that test designers, in similar contexts, might consider to help their learnersovercome their testing difficulties through appropriate use of dynamic assessment.

In the MENA context, evaluation challenges are numerous. For instance, one of thechallenges rests on the stakeholders’ ability to implement specific evaluation standardsthat would serve the interests of all parties. Evaluation has to be contextualized andrelevant and it has to be regarded from this perspective. For instance, how can eval-uation be employed to improve the curriculum and other related programs? The currentsituation in the MENA context should consider different parameters to enhance therelevance of evaluation to different stakeholders, such as teacher training, teachingcontent, teaching methodologies, students’ needs, curriculum design, and writing rel-evant test specs that meet the curriculum objectives and materials design. There shouldbe a careful consideration of the people who should be well versed in evaluation toimplement, collect, analyze, and report on data. Evaluation has to be contextualized byhighlighting its purpose, content, usage, and method (Nygaar & Belluigi, 2011) and itsresults should be treated with caution to avoid any misuse or harm.

The MENA context boasts itself for being “unified” at the level of language, culture,and religion. However, there exists a big challenge on whether the different stake-holders of the MENA context, especially the Arab countries, are capable of developinga common Arab framework of reference to improve the educational standards andpractices. Research in this field should focus on student evaluation, teacher evaluation,and summative versus formative evaluation. In addition, further research is needed toevaluate the quality of the graduate programs, given the eventuality of the increasingnumber of graduates sitting for their master’s and Ph.D. programs everywhere in theMENA context. There should be an open debate among these countries to maintainsome educational sustainability and improvement. Many challenges for evaluationappear straightforward, such as the sociocultural context, the right people to implementevaluation, and the different ways to align evaluation to well-defined parameters thatreflect the very sociocultural context of the MENA region. Even though this book bearsgreat significance to evaluation in general, still addressing other facets of evaluation inthe MENA context remains unexplored.

Sahbi HidriEnglish Language Institute, University of Jeddah

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; andFaculty of Human and Social

Sciences of Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia

Christine CoombeHigher Colleges of TechnologyDubai, United Arab Emirates

x Preface

References

Bachman, L., & Palmer, A. (1996). Language testing in practice. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.

Bachman, L., & Palmer, A. (2010). Language assessment in practice. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.

Bailey, K. M., & Brown, J. D. (1996). Language testing courses: What are they? In A. Cumming& R. Berwick (Eds.), Validation in language testing (pp. 236–256). Clevedon, UK:Multilingual Matters.

Brown, J. D., & Bailey, K. M. (2008). Language testing courses: What are they in 2007?Language Testing, 25(3), 349–384.

Campbell, B., & Mark, M. M. (2015). How analogue research can advance descriptive evaluationtheory: Understanding (and improving) stakeholder dialogue. American Journal of Evaluation,36(2), 204-220. doi:10.1177/1098214014532166

Golding, C., & Adam, L. (2014). Evaluate to improve: Useful approaches to student evaluation.Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 41(1), 1–14. doi:10.1080/02602938.2014.976810

Hart, D., Diercks-O’Brien., & Powell, A. (2009). Exploring stakeholder engagement in impactevaluation planning in educational development work. Evaluation, 15(3), 285–306. doi:10.1177/1356389009105882

Hidri, S. (2014). Developing and evaluating a dynamic assessment of listening comprehension inan EFL context. Language Testing in Asia, 4(4). doi:10.1186/2229-0443-4-4

Hidri. S. (2015). Conceptions of assessment: Investigating what assessment means to secondaryand university teachers. Arab Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 19–43.

Jin, Y. (2010). The place of language testing and assessment in the professional preparation offoreign language teachers in China. Language Testing, 27(4), 555–584. doi:10.1177/026553220935143

Kiley, R., & Rea-Dickins, P. (2005). Program evaluation in language education. Palgrave:Macmillan.

Kyvik, S., & Thune, T. (2015). Assessing the quality of Ph.D. dissertations. A survey of externalcommittee members. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 40(5), 768–782. doi:10.1080/02602938.2014.956283

Ladyshewsky, R., & Taplin, R. (2015). Evaluation of curriculum and student learning needs using360-degree assessment. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 40(5), 698–711.doi:10.1080/02602938.2014.950189

Lantolf, J. L., & Poehner, M. E. (2011). Dynamic assessment in the classroom: Vygotskian praxisfor second language development. Language Teaching Research, 15(1), 1–23. doi:10.1177/1362168810383328

Leung, C., & Rea-Dickins, P. (2007). Teacher assessment as policy instrument: Contradictions andcapacities. Language Assessment Quarterly, 4(1), 6–36. doi:10.1080/15434300701348318

Nygaard, C., & Belluigi, D. Z. (2011). A proposed methodology for contextualized evaluation inhigher education. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 36(6), 657–671. doi:10.1080/02602931003650037

Shiel, C., Filho, W. L., do Paço., & Brandli, L. (2015). Assessing and evaluating sustainabledevelopment in higher education. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 40(6),783–784. doi:10.1080/02602938.2015.1073028

Swanwick, T. (2007). Introducing large-scale educational reform in a complex environment: Therole of piloting and evaluation in modernizing medical careers. Evaluation, 13(3), 358–370.doi:10.1177/1356389007078624

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Wei, W. (2015). Using summative and formative assessments to evaluate EFL teachers’ teachingperformance. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 40(4), 611–623. doi:10.1080/02602938.2014.939609

West, S. E. (2015). Evaluation, or just data collection? An exploration of the evaluation practice ofselected UK environmental educators. The Journal of Environmental Education, 46(1), 41–55.doi:10.1080/00958964.2014.973351

xii Preface

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all the authors who volunteered to take part in this project.This book would not have come to life without their dedication and commitment.A special thank you would go to my co-editor, Christine Coombe, who contributeda lot to the final shape of this book. Thank you all for making it possible.

Sahbi Hidri

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Contents

Part I Teacher and Faculty Evaluation

Teacher Evaluation: What Counts as an Effective Teacher? . . . . . . . . . . 3Omid Mazandarani and Salah Troudi

EFL Teacher Evaluation: A Theoretical Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Khadija Alamoudi and Salah Troudi

Faculty Performance Evaluation and Appraisal: A Casefrom Syria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Anas Al-Fattal

Part II Assessment Practices

Ethicality in EFL Classroom Assessment: Bridging the Gapbetween Theory and Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59Shaimaa A. Torky and Nawal Abdul Sayed Haider

Problematizing Teachers’ Exclusion from Designing Exit Tests . . . . . . . 87Abderrazak Dammak

The Voice of Classroom Achievement towards Native and Non-nativeEducators in English Language Teaching: An Evaluative Study. . . . . . . 111Tahany Albaiz

Part III Text Genre Analysis Evaluation

Evaluation of Generic Structure of Research Letters BodySection: Create a Research Letter Body Section Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127Mimoun Melliti

Genre Analysis and Cultural Variations: A Cognitive Evaluationof Anglo-American Undergraduate Personal Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145Ghada Hajji

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Part IV Assessment of Productive Skills

Learner Differences: A Trojan Horse Factor in Task-Based OralProduction Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161Mohamed Ridha Ben Maad

Assessing ESL Students’ Paraphrasing and Note-Taking . . . . . . . . . . . . 169Yasmine Soheim

Criteria for Assessing EFL Writing at Majma’ah University . . . . . . . . . 185El-Sadig Yahya Ezza

Part V Textbook and ICT Evaluation

An Evaluation of the Place of Culture in English Educationin Tunisia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203Tarek Hermessi

Evaluation of ICT Use in Language Education: Why Evaluate,Where to Look and with What Means? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221Faiza Derbel

Part VI Evaluation of ELT Certificates and Programs

Evaluating the Certificate of Teaching English as a ForeignLanguage (CTEFL): A Way to Quality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237Hala Salih and Abuelgasim Sabah Elsaid Mohammed

An Evaluation of the Challenges of Sudanese Linguistics and EnglishLanguage-Related Studies’ Ph.D. Candidates: An ExploratoryQualitative Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251Awad Alhassan and Holi Ibrahim Holi Ali

Part VII Quality Assurance, ESP Needs Analysis

Quality Assurance and Foreign Language Programme Evaluation . . . . . 273Donald F. Staub

Evaluation in Tunisia: The Case of Engineering Students . . . . . . . . . . . . 293Rym Jamly

Part VIII Assessment Literacy and Dynamic Assessment

Why Should the Assessment of Literacy in Morocco Be Revisited? . . . . 305Abdelmajid Bouziane

Specs Validation of a Dynamic Reading Comprehension Testfor EAP Learners in an EFL Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315Sahbi Hidri

xvi Contents

Editors and Contributors

About the Editors

Sahbi Hidri is an assistant professor of applied linguistics at the Faculty of Humanand Social Sciences of Tunis, Tunisia. Recently, he joined the English LanguageInstitute, University of Jeddah, KSA. He worked in Oman for three years (Collegeof Applied Sciences and the Humanities Research Centre at Sultan QaboosUniversity). Dr. Hidri is the founder of Tunisia TESOL and the Arab Journal ofApplied Linguistics. Currently, he is chair the TESOL Arabia Research SpecialInterest Group. His research interests include language assessment, testing andevaluation, assessment literacy, test-taking strategies, statistics, measurement, specsvalidation of the language skills, SLA, and dynamic assessment. His work hasappeared in Nile TESOL and TESOL Arabia publications, Arab Journal of AppliedLinguistics, Language Testing in Asia where he serves as an editor along with otherjournals, such as Assessment for Effective Intervention. Dr. Hidri has also authoredtwo entries (Item analysis and Discrete vs. integrative testing) in TESOLEncyclopedia of English Language Teaching (to appear 2016) along with otherforthcoming publications. Email: sahbihidri@gmail.com

Christine Coombe has a Ph.D. in foreign/second language education from TheOhio State University. She is currently on the English faculty of Dubai Men’sCollege. She is the former testing and measurements supervisor at UAE Universityand assessment coordinator of Zayed University. Christine is co-editor ofAssessment practices; co-author, a practical guide to assessing English languagelearners; co-editor, evaluating teacher effectiveness in EF/SL contexts; co-editor,language teacher research in the Middle East leadership in English languageteaching and learning; applications of task-based learning in TESOL; theCambridge guide to second language assessment, and reigniting, retooling andretiring in English language teaching. Her forthcoming books are on researchmethods in EF/SL and life skills education. Dr. Coombe has lived and worked inthe Arabian Gulf for the past 23 years where she has served as the president andconference chair of TESOL Arabia and as the founder and co-chair of the TESOL

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Arabia Testing Special Interest Group. Christine is also the founder and chair of theTESOL Arabia Leadership and Management SIG. Dr. Coombe has won manyawards including 2002 Spaan Fellowship for Research in Second/Foreign LanguageAssessment; 2002–2003 TOEFL Outstanding Young Scholar Award; TOEFLBoard Grant for 2003–2004, 2005–2006, 2007–2008, and 2009–2010. Mostrecently, she served on the TESOL Board of Directors as Convention Chair forTampa 2006 and was the recipient of the Chancellor’s Teacher of the Year for2003–2004. She served as TESOL President (2011–2012) and was a member of theTESOL Board of Directors (2010–2013). Dr. Coombe received the BritishCouncil’s International Assessment Award for 2013. Email: ccoombe@hct.ac.ae

Contributors

Nawal Abdul Sayed Haider has completed a master’s in teaching english as aforeign language from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) witha focus on testing and classroom assessment. She has taught EFL and ESP coursesin Kuwait and the USA. She has also participated in many projects during hercareer mainly pertaining to the assessment committee and the coarse developmentcommittee at PAAET. She has presented papers on teaching and assessment atconferences in the USA. Her latest research explores the assessment methods beingused at the Ministry of Education in Kuwait. Email: nawala33@hotmail.com

Khadija Alamoudi is an academic and a lecturer at the English Language Instituteof King Abdulaziz University. She is a Ph.D. researcher at the University of Exeter.Her interests lie in the area of EFL teacher evaluation in higher education. She haspublished some articles in English linguistics and she acts as a peer reviewer forsome academic online journals on language and applied linguistics. Email:khaalamoudi@kau.edu.sa

Tahany Albaiz is an associate professor in instruction and curriculum of EFL.Obsessed with the leadership and development of English language programs,Dr. Albaiz has had the privilege of attending and presenting at many conferences andevents at many international destinations, such as Russia, Hawaii, France, and theNetherlands. One of her goals is to help others get great opportunities to learn anddevelop so they feel like partners in the workplace. Dr. Tahany is a full-time facultymember and the vice-dean of the English Language Institute at the University ofJeddah. Her research interests include instruction and assessment of EFL and theinclusion of thinking routines in EFL classrooms. Email: talbeiz@uj.edu.sa

Anas Al-Fattal received his Ph.D. and master’s degrees from the University ofLeeds in the UK. The focus of his study and research has been educational man-agement, marketing, applied psychology, and consumer behavior (student choice).He is the author of a book called Marketing Universities. He lectures in marketing,management, and research. Dr. Al-Fattal currently lectures at the College of

xviii Editors and Contributors

Banking and Financial Studies in Oman. He has awarded several administrativepositions at post-secondary educational institutions. He worked for an ESRC pro-ject on visual research methods “Building Visual Capacity.” Dr. Al-Fattal has beena member of Higher Education Reform Experts (HERE) team for ERASMUS+ forseveral years. Email: anasfat@hotmail.com

Awad Alhassan is an assistant professor of applied linguistics and TESOL at theDepartment of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Khartoum. He has an M.A.and Ph.D. in applied linguistics from the University of Essex, UK. Dr. Alhassan’steaching and research interests include TESOL, EAP, academic writing, academicliteracy and critical EAP, corpus linguistics, the use of corpora in ELT and trans-lation, the use of EMI in higher education, and ethnographic and qualitative researchmethodology in applied linguistics and ELT. Email: awad_alhassan@hotmail.com

Holi Ibrahim Holi Ali is a lecturer at Rustaq College of Applied Sciences in theSultanate of Oman. He has an M.A. in applied linguistics, CELTA, and he iscurrently pursuing his Ph.D. in applied linguistics in the University of Huddersfiled,UK. He has presented widely in regional and international conferences and pub-lished extensively in peer-reviewed journals. He is primarily interested inESP/EAP, EMI, ELT, academic writing, writing for publication, assessment, crit-ical discourse analysis, assessment, translation, and plagiarism detection softwareand technology. He has a general interest in critical pedagogy, academic literacy,sociolinguistics, and linguistic landscaping. Email: Holi.ibrahim.rus@cas.edu.om

Mohamed Ridha Ben Maad is currently teaching at the Institut Supérieur desCadres de l’Enfance, University of Carthage, Tunisia. Dr. Ben Maad’s mainresearch interests are in applied linguistics, psycholinguistics, and alternative SLAtheory. He actively contributes to research projects related to early childhoodeducation. Email: ridhamaad@hotmail.com

Abdelmajid Bouziane holds a doctorate in education. He is a professor atHassan II University of Casablanca, Morocco. He has participated in many nationaland international conferences, workshops, and projects. He has published on dif-ferent issues related to ELT and has reviewed books, CDROMs, and Web sites. Hismain interests include the following: (Quantitative) classroom-oriented research,ICT in education (especially in the teaching of languages), literacy (in ESL/EFL),governance and quality in higher education, teacher training, and NGOs. He is thepresident of the Moroccan Inter-University Network of English (MINE). He is alsothe editor of ELTeCS AME List (English Language Teaching Contacts Scheme forAfrica and the Middle East). Email: abdelmajid.bouziane@gmail.com

Abderrazak Dammak is an “All But Dissertation” (ABD) doctoral candidate inTESOL at the University of Exeter’s Graduate School of Education. He is amultilingual scholar with a wide range of experience in the field of applied lin-guistics and TESOL and a senior lecturer and researcher as well as program teamleader in the English Department (Academic & ESP Sections) of ADNOCTechnical Institute, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. In addition, Abderrazak has

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over 20 years of experience in teaching, ESL curriculum design, educationaldevelopment, and academic leadership. He is a member of various academic andprofessional associations including TESOL Arabia and on the InternationalEditorial Board of the Journal of Somali Studies (JOSS). He has extensively pre-sented in institutional, regional, and international academic conferences. His currentresearch projects are related to teacher empowerment and development, ESL/EFLteaching and learning in the Arabian context, design, and application of remedialcourses for slow learners, as well as research methods in TESOL. Email:damarazak66@gmail.com

Faiza Derbel is an assistant professor of English and linguistics at the Faculty ofLetters, Arts and Humanities, Manouba (FLAHM), Tunis. Dr. Derbel is courseleader of the Professional Master in English Applied to Business andCommunication at FLAHM and the Master of English didactics at the HighInstitute of Education and Continuous Development (ISEFC). She is also coordi-nator of the Agrégation Exam Preparation Program at Manouba. Her researchinterests include ELT (teaching of skills, teacher cognition and learner variables,curriculum and instruction in ELT), Business and Professional English, andcomputer-assisted language learning (CALL). Dr. Derbel is the former president ofTunisia TESOL. Email: fderbel26@gmail.com

El-Sadig Yahya Ezza is an associate professor of English at Majma’ah Universityin Saudi Arabia. Dr. Ezza teaches undergraduate courses and conducts actionresearch in different aspects of EFL. His research interests include academic writ-ing, EFL pronunciation, and lexicography. Email: e.ezza@mu.edu.sa

Ghada Hajji is currently an English teacher at the Faculty of Arts and Humanitiesand the Higher Institute of Computer Sciences at Sfax. She was graduated from theUniversity of Social and Human Sciences of Tunis. She got her B.A. in EnglishLiterature, Linguistics and Civilization in 2011. Then in 2014, she was awarded hermaster’s in applied linguistics and genre analysis. She has participated in severalconferences on modern linguistics at the faculties of Tunis and Sfax. Email:hajjighada@hotmail.com

Tarek Hermessi teaches psycholinguistics, TEFL, and research methodology atpostgraduate level. His research interests include motivation and L2 learning,culture and L2 education, globalization and L2 education, and acculturation and L2education. He is currently the head of the English Department at Institut Supérieurdes Langues de Tunis, Tunisia. Email: hermestic@yahoo.com

Rym Jamly is a part-time English teacher at the Higher Institute of Legal andPolitical Studies of Kairouan, Tunisia. She received a B.A. degree in English fromthe Higher Institute of Languages of Gabes and a master’s degree in English fromthe Faculty of Human and Social Sciences of Tunis. As a master’s student, sheparticipated in a number of national and international conferences and study dayson various topics such as needs analysis in English for specific purposes, learnerassessment, curriculum development, and course evaluation. Throughout her three

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years of teaching experience, she has taught oral expression and pronunciation tofirst-year English students and legal as well as business English to law students. Herresearch interests include ESP, language testing, discourse analysis, academicwriting, and professional communication. Email: rym.jamly@gmail.com

Omid Mazandarani is an assistant professor in TESOL at the Department ofEnglish Language Teaching, Islamic Azad University, Aliabad Katoul Branch,Aliabad Katoul, Iran, where he teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses inTESOL and supervises master’s students on various topics in TESOL/appliedlinguistics. Dr. Mazandarani holds a Ph.D. in TESOL from the University ofExeter, England, and is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy(AFHEA). His research interests include teacher education, development, andevaluation, research methodologies, educational technology, and critical issues inTESOL. Email: omazandarani@gmail.com

Mimoun Melliti is a lecturer of English at University of Kairouan, Tunisia. Hewrote two books entitled “Globality in global textbooks: Principles and applica-bility” and “The perceived value of English: The case of Tunisian university stu-dents.” His main research interests are genre analysis, evaluation of academicdiscourse, evaluation of ELT and ESP materials, and discourse analysis. He is thefounder and president of Tunisian Association of Young Researchers andeditor-in-chief of its journal TAYR Quarterly. Email: mimoun_melliti@yahoo.com

Abuelgasim Sabah Elsaid Mohammed is an assistant professor at the Universityof Khartoum. Currently, Dr. Elsaid Mohamed works as the head of the PostgraduateStudies Unit at the English Language Institute. He also works as a freelance con-sultant in curriculum design and he has participated in curriculum design projectsrun by the UNDP, World Bank, and tertiary-level institutions. Dr. ElsaidMohamed’s interests are materials design, evaluation, EAP, and ESP. Email:abuelgasims@gmail.com

Hala Salih Mohammed Nur is an associate professor at the University ofKhartoum. In 2011, Dr. Nur was appointed as the founding director of the EnglishLanguage Institute, the first institute of its kind in Sudan. Since the establishmentof the ELI, Dr. Nur has become involved in curriculum development and programassessment. She also works as a national consultant and a teacher trainer. Email:halasalih64@gmail.com

Yasmine Soheim is an English instructor, currently working at the Rhetoric andComposition Department at the American University in Cairo. She has beenteaching for six years in different language institutions. She has a passion forresearch in the field of assessment and pragmatics. She earned her master’s inTESOL from the American University in Cairo in 2014, where she has worked as aresearch fellow to her assessment professor for more than a year. Her teachingexperience and her enthusiasm for research have also been thrived by being ateaching fellow for almost two years at the Intensive English Program at the sameuniversity. Email: soheim@aucegypt.edu

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Donald F. Staub is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at IşıkUniversity in Istanbul, Turkey. He also serves as the coordinator of the QualityAssurance Unit within the School of Foreign Languages. Prior to moving to Turkeyin 2011, Dr. Staub spent five years as the director of a student retention project thatincluded his leadership in successfully developing and implementing aninstitution-wide outcomes assessment plan. Dr. Staub has a doctorate in educationalleadership from Eastern Michigan University (EMU), and an M.A. (TESOL) andB.A. (Literature) from Michigan State University. Dr. Staub is a reviewer for TheCommission on English Language Accreditation. His primary research interests liein EFL quality assurance, student retention, and the delivery of English mediuminstruction. Email: staubdonald2@yahoo.com

Shaimaa A. Torky is an associate professor of TEFL at the National Center forEducational Research and Development in Egypt. Dr. Torky has taught EFL andESP courses at many accredited universities in Egypt and Kuwait and has alsoworked as a teacher trainer for many years. With a special interest in testing andlanguage assessment, Dr. Torky has published papers that address modern andinnovative methods of teaching and testing language skills and has presentedseminal papers on ELT and assessment at conferences in Egypt, Kuwait, and theUSA. As part of her career, she carried out some training programs to train EFLteachers on designing test item specs, developing test items, and utilizing holisticand analytic methods to assess writing skills. Dr. Torky’s latest research exploresthe implications of differentiated instruction for teaching reading comprehensionand teaching writing using Web 2.0 tools. Email: shaimaatorky@gmail.com

Salah Troudi is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Education of theUniversity of Exeter where he is the director of the Doctorate in TESOL in Dubaiand the supervisory coordinator of the Ph.D. in TESOL. Dr. Troudi’s teaching andresearch interests include language teacher education, critical issues in languageeducation, language policy, curriculum development and evaluation, andclassroom-based research. Dr. Troudi has published articles in several TESOL andlanguage education journals and edited a number of books. Email: s.troudi@exeter.ac.uk

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